The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi


Elevator Escape

Valey clung tight to a chain as it rattled, dragging around a distant pulley and yanking her upwards at a far faster speed than she could climb by hoof. Catwalks and pipes whizzed past as she fought to hang on, and only a tingle from her cutie mark allowed her to jerk to the side, avoiding having her ride disintegrated by sniper pony.

She had a good fix on his location, and wanted him gone. She could see the elevator; it was still above her, but she was gaining on it, and Starlight's shield was holding. Five pegasi buzzed near it, alternating between whaling on it with their wimpy black clubs and simply waiting for it to break. That was two more than last time, but not three more. Even if there were no reinforcements, there was an escaped attacker unaccounted for.

Sniper pony shot again, far enough above her that there was nothing she could do as he severed the long chain she was riding upwards. Converting her momentum, she flipped and landed evenly on a dormant platform. He was getting annoying! He was also watching her, only half a level above and three catwalks away. Valey grinned.

She lunged off her platform, using a hanging bundle of cables as a landing point to extend her jump, rolling smoothly onto a walkway. There was a pipe she could run along to the second. Cackling as she ran, Valey leapt as the pipe exploded in a shower of plasma behind her and falling away, letting her momentum carry her to the catwalk. She was close enough to see his eyes, and they looked scared. He was... wait. He was a unicorn?

Up close, it was obvious sniper pony wasn't a pegasus. His long-barreled launcher was mounted to a stand, but swiveled and aimed by a cloud of green telekinesis originating from a point on his head. That wasn't fair! The Defense Force was supposed to be all pegasi...

Well, it was unfair for him, at least.

No wings? No chance to fly away if she got too close, and he didn't look nearly as acrobatic as her. The stallion struggled to aim at close quarters while Valey searched for a way across the final gap, eventually giving up and abandoning his launcher, racing down the catwalk to the drill column... and getting decked out of nowhere by an earth pony wearing a hard hat who was thrice as beefy as he was.

"There you are, varmint!" the mine technician roared, slugging the unicorn again as a squad of backup arrived, toting welding torches and pipe wrenches and furious expressions on their soot-stained faces. "You're with those roughhousers who're damaging the equipment! The Defense Force sits around hogging resources all day while they're supposed to keep us safe and it's bad enough, but now you're breaking the machines!?"

"Uh-oh." Valey grinned, ducking behind a thin support pillar. She had hoped to commandeer sniper pony's launcher to try to knock some things down on the pegasi chasing the elevator, but it looked like that was firmly out of the question. The core was mostly shut down, but the workers left inside didn't seem to take kindly to the collateral damage the fight was causing... and since they couldn't fly or be acrobatic and nimble, that was good for her.

Sniper pony actually started fighting back, shielding himself with a pulse of telekinesis and a dodge, then yanking away a weapon and tripping a pony who was trying to flank him. Seriously? The ponies she had just gone one versus ten against were themselves willing and able to fight a mob solo? Valey whistled. She was almost tempted to jump in and even the odds, just to see what would happen, if he hadn't just been shooting at her and her friends weren't still under attack. He could reap his own reward; she had an elevator to catch.


Valey raced up a steep, swaying bunch of cables, its incline just gentle enough that she could get purchase on the ties holding the cables together without sliding back down. She was gaining on the elevator again, but suspected it was going slower, possibly as a safety mechanism and possibly because of the weight of Starlight's crystal. The same five pegasi kept haunting it, some flying underneath inside the elevator shaft and others rising along outside, hounding the exit stations as it passed. They had risen far enough that the glass window wasn't shattered anymore and no longer had a turret, but that didn't stop them from trying.

Time to rejoin the fray. Shadow sneaking up a lengthy crevice, kicking off a hanging air duct and landing on a bridge to an elevator terminal, Valey steadied herself just as the five reached her level. "Hey, lemon bags!" she shouted, standing aggressively despite the burning in her legs from so much rapid climbing in an already-roasting environment. "You totally forgot me down there! What gives!?"

The three pegasi outside the elevator shaft spun on her, landing, as the two within bludgeoned the door until it shattered and they could slip through to rejoin their companions. Even as a team of five, they looked uncertain as they faced down Valey, clearly remembering that they had been far more numerous in the battle below.

"Well?" Valey tapped a hoof in annoyance. "What gives? Do you guys have an extra-special beef, or something? Just felt like targeting me on your own time? Giving me a proper farewell? Or do you chicken out of a fight and go after your enemy's friends the moment the going gets rough?"

"It's called taking hostages," one pegasus spat, stepping forward into a position of command. "We asked you to surrender and you refused. We're not interested in your friends, just you. It's our job." He spat again. "Please surrender. I don't want to lose another tooth or any of my friends over this, either."

"Technically, your job is to protect Ironridge," Valey pointed out. "Unless you're secretly cultists or something crazy posing as Defense Force, which I totally would believe given your competence. You want me to leave you alone? Easy solution: leave me alone first."

The lead pegasus shook his head. The elevator rose higher. In all the climbing they'd done, they were only three levels from the top of the shaft, and if she could distract the pegasi a little more, the elevator would be out of the Flame District.

"No, huh?" Valey took a warning step forward. "So where's your buddy? There's one fewer of you than there should be... Summoning reinforcements? Running for the hills at my awesome combat skills? Or did I take him out so anti-climatically that I don't even remember fighting him?"

The pegasi looked goaded. Good. She could handle them; Maple and Gerardo probably couldn't.

"He's tending to our injured," a pegasus said irately. "Like a responsible member of a team. We don't like taking losses. Every single pony counts."

Valey rolled her eyes. "Ooooh, noble. What, are you trying to guilt-trip me out of fighting you? Have you even heard of my reputation? No, seriously, have you?" She leaned forward, squinting. "If I didn't recognize some of you, I'd say you guys can't be Defense Force... Though hey, I've always had a better memory for mares. But who cares? Ready to continue thumping heads?"

The pegasi snorted, staring at her and not charging. They were stalling too, Valey realized with a shiver. And whatever it was for had to be more important than letting Starlight get away and risking the miner ponies finding them.

As if she'd let that happen.

"Well, it's been fun!" Valey shot her wings out, visibly wincing on her right side. "Bye!"

She leapt straight up... and the surprised pegasi, having caught on or otherwise been informed that she couldn't fly, scrambled into the air to intercept her. But rather than flapping, she folded her wings again, simply leaping in place and then darting forward along the ground. The pegasi were unprepared as she scooted underneath them, beelining straight for the broken doors to the elevator shaft.


"Nnngh..." Valey grunted in exertion as she clung spiderlike to the jagged, hewn wall of the elevator shaft interior. It was a long way to the bottom, and falling was the last thing she wanted to do... but she had an opportunity to get them all off her tail and prevent them from following, and she was going to take it. With the strain of burning muscles, she leapt off the wall, reaching the far side of the tunnel and digging in again with moderate height gain. Then she did it again. Then four pegasi zoomed in beneath her.

Go! Valey dropped down from the wall, kicking one squarely in the head and leaping back off, resuming her perch on the wall's other side. Unfortunately, it didn't knock them out and send another diving to catch them. She needed just a little bit of distance...

Then, the lights went out.

Valey blinked in surprise. A large portion of the upper core had dimmed, plunging the elevator shaft into enough darkness that she could shadow sneak. That was convenient! Now she could swim up the walls, which was faster, safer and easier than jumping. Smirking, she sank into the shadows as confused pegasus shouts rang out. Maybe she'd get to save some stamina for later, after all.

One pegasus shot past her, streaking upward. The other three hovered down below. Where was the fifth? Didn't matter. Obviously, they were trying to pincer her somehow, heading her off from above and below, but her cutie mark wasn't tingling, so she had nothing to fear.

She swam upwards, passing another elevator station... and the next... and eventually reaching the stone ceiling where the glass disappeared and the tunnel became rock all the way around. Almost there, almost there, almost there...

Suddenly, her mark suspended time, and she halted with a gasp. What was going on? Below her, far below, the three pegasi waited. She could see a pony above, flying back down the tunnel, but she was in the shadows. She ducked all the way in regardless, there shouldn't be anything the oncoming pony could do.

The pony held their pitiful black club straight forward like a blaster... and then the end flashed, emitting no projectile and a very large amount of light, forcefully ejecting Valey from the wall. "That's cheating-!" she barely had time to yell before the pony plowed into her, delivering a ferocious punch to her already-sore belly and sending her flying downward toward the waiting pegasi.

...The body pressing her downwards was the same size as her, she realized with a flash as they passed back into the glass portion of the elevator shaft and the waiting pegasi streaked up to meet them. That meant she was a she, and might be cute and cuddly... but more importantly wasn't at a strength or weight advantage like the stallions were. Valey grabbed the hoof that was pushing her as they fell, yanked the mare out of her flight pattern, and grappled her sideways such that she was pinning both of the mare's wings awkwardly against her sides. They spun out, and just before reaching the stallions Valey was able to kick off the glass, shadow sneaking and forcing both of them into the wall.

Disorientation from having her head submerged immediately caused the mare to writhe furiously, and Valey fought to keep a hold on her as the stallions approached from below and the tingling in her cutie mark increased. She saw them charging their flash clubs, preparing to flush her out... and leapt at the last second, flinging the thrashing pegasus into their faces and causing significant team damage as they were kicked and bucked and tried to get a grip on their friend. It was a perfect time to get ahead and test out her idea.

Fresh with the knowledge of what the flash clubs really did, and slightly annoyed that they were even more specifically designed to fight her than she thought, Valey smirked and pulled out the stun grenade from her hat. It used a sedative gas, and in an enclosed, unventilated shaft...

Her cutie mark gradually buzzed once the pin was pulled as the grenade timer wound down and down. She kept a careful eye both above and below to ensure it wasn't masking any threats; the pegasi below were ascending again and nothing was coming from above. When the grenade was a second away from explosion, she flung it downward and it detonated, filling the tunnel with a faint haze.

The first stallion charged into it and took about a second to faint. He landed on the second one, who was swiftly losing consciousness. The third one and the mare were far enough back to realize what was happening and be saddled with the task of catching their friends. Valey cackled as she rose; the tunnel was blocked, and even if those two felt like holding their breath and flying through it, they still had to go back and set down their allies and would then be two against one.

Still, that mare had come from above, and she hadn't seen a trace of the stallion who had soared away ahead of her. She could smell Starlight somewhere above her in the distance, but that meant the very best she could hope for was that there were enemies between them and her... and they could easily have been captured. She swam furiously upward; they weren't out of Ironridge yet.